“Of course you would wish to do all that is possible for them?”
“I should feel it the greatest honour. Still my first duty is to you, and you have told me that your mother wished you to keep your brother out of the way of his schoolfellow.”
“My mother would not wish to deprive her worst enemy of your care in such need as this,” said Lord Fordham, smiling. “Besides if this friend of Cecil’s were ever so bad, he couldn’t do him much harm while he is ill, poor boy. We will at any rate stay to get them through the next few days, and then we can judge. I will settle it with my mother.”
“I knew you would say so,” rejoined the doctor. “Thank you. Then it seems to me that the right course will be to write to Mrs. Evelyn, inclosing a note to Dr. Lucas—who it seems is Mrs. Brownlow’s chief reliance—asking him to find someone to send out. She, can send it on to him if she disapproves of our remaining together longer than is absolutely necessary, or if Leukerbad disagrees with you. Meantime, I’ll go and see whether Reeves has found any men to carry the poor boys.”
Unfortunately it was too early in the season for the hotels to have marshalled their full establishment, and such careful and surefooted bearers as the sufferers needed could not be had in sufficient numbers, so that Dr. Medlicott was forced to decide on leaving the elder patient for a night at Schwarenbach. The move might be matter of life or death to Armine; but Jock was better, the pain could be somewhat allayed by anodynes, the fever was abating, and he would rather gain than lose by another day of rest, provided he would only accept his fate patiently, and also if he could be properly attended to. If Mr. Graham would stay with him—
So breakfast was eaten, bills were paid, horses hired, and the whole cavalcade started from Kandersteg in time to secure the best part of a bright hot day for the transit.
They met Mr. Graham, who had been glad to escape as soon as Mrs. Brownlow had found other assistance, so that the doctor was disappointed in his hope of a guardian for Jock. Lord Fordham offered to lend Reeves, but that functionary absolutely refused to separate himself from his charge, observing—
“I am responsible for your lordship to your mamma, and it does not lie within my province to leave you on any account.”
Reeves always called Mrs. Evelyn “your mamma” when he wished to be particularly authoritative with his young gentlemen. If they were especially troublesome he called her “your ma.”
“And after all,” said the doctor, “I don’t know what sort of preparations the young gentlemen would make if we let them go by themselves. A bare room, perhaps—with no bed-clothes, and nothing to eat till the table d’hote”